SoLé Mia

Biscayne Landing is a 193-acre master-planned community on the site of the former Munisport Landfill. It is one of the largest residential projects ever planned on a former Superfund site.

Project Site

Standort

Biscayne Landing is located in North Miami, Florida on the former Munisport site, which is within a 2,000-acre enclave on Biscayne Bay. The site is bordered to the east by Biscayne Bay and Oleta River State Park, Florida’s largest urban park, to the south by a mobile home community, to the west by commercial developments. The property is immediately south of Florida's second largest wastewater treatment plant , North District Interama.

History of site

• 1951: Legislature forms Inter American Center Authority, or Interama, to create a cultural and trade center.
• 1970: The Interama plans die; North Miami buys land for $12 million in bonds.
• 1972: Munisport Inc. leases land to build golf courses and public pools.
• 1974: Munisport opens dump, plans to sculpt fill into rolling hills.
• 1977: County cites dump for leaking drums, medical waste, odor.
• 1981: State revokes permit; dump closes.
• 1983: EPA lists site on Superfund cleanup list.
• 1989: EPA concludes site poses risk only to marine life.
• 1990: Waste fire burns for weeks.
• 1999: EPA removes site from Superfund list.
• 2003: Biscayne Landing receives landfill closure permit from state, begins construction.
• 2007: First two condo towers open.

Environmental Condition

Biscayne Landing’s environmental standing is described as "brownfield," which the government defines as property for which the expansion, redevelopment or reuse may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of contaminants. From 1974 to 1980, more than 6 million cubic yards of solid wastes, including household garbage, construction debris, industrial and commercial refuse and some hazardous wastes were dumped at the site. After hearings and lawsuits stemming from permit violations and regulatory noncompliance at the landfill, state and federal authorities revoked all permits for the facility in 1980. (see the article on Munisport Landfill for further information).

In 1983, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) named the Munisport landfill on its National Priorities List of uncontrolled hazardous release sites. An agency investigation uncovered severe groundwater contamination, surface water, sediment and soils, as well as a threat to nearby aquatic life from leachate. The site has undergone several additional controversial studies since the 1980s by the EPA and other agencies, which concluded that ammonia in the groundwater at the site potentially represented a threat to the environmentally sensitive mangrove preserve, but did not threaten public health or welfare. Local residents have contested these studies because they did not follow established government guidelines for such a site and thus were not thorough enough to rule out potential health threats of contaminents on the site.

In 1992, under pressure from the City of North Miami, a consent Decree between the city and the EPA redefined and shrunk the National Priorities List boundaries of Munisport.

Cleanup Difficulties

Multiple government agencies have tested the groundwater under the landfill and all detected a soup of about 30 chemicals, from lead to PCBs. After testing, the EPA has concluded that these chemicals are generally at levels that the EPA has deemed low enough to allow "unlimited use and unrestricted exposure." However, ammonia, commonly caused by a garbage dump, can be found in spots to be nearly 200 times above county standards for marine waters.

After years of tests, in June 2007 Dade County regulators rejected the developer's plan to use large amounts of sugar to resolve the issue of elevated levels of ammonia in the groundwater running under the site.

The developer argues otherwise and has filed an appeal to the county's environmental quality control board, which could be heard in July 2007. The builder wants to keep a system that puts pollution control out of sight by piping sugar and air underground to feed natural bacteria that convert ammonia to harmless gas.

Nicholas Albergo, whose Tampa-based HSA Engineers & Scientists devised the system, said the county is measuring in the wrong spot. When tainted groundwater passes through the "reactive wall," he said, ammonia nearly vanishes.

The EPA listed the site on the Superfund list for 17 years, in part because elevated levels of ammonia in the groundwater that was believed to threaten marine life. It was removed the site from the list in 1999 after ordering fixes to reduce the ammonia. Federal, state and county agencies all have signed off on the plan to finish sealing the dump with two feet of dirt or concrete. Some critics of the Munisport site insist agencies never conducted the right tests to pinpoint toxic pockets and underestimate the health and environmental threat.

The tract and every structure will be equipped with systems to vent, capture or detect methane gas emitted by the decomposition of organic debris. In addition, to protect the soil cap that acts as a barrier to the waste and its biproducts, developers or homeowners groups will handle plantings or any digging deeper than two feet.

Monitoring During Construction

After two years of construction, contractors monitored by DERM have not reported anything toxic or troubling -- mostly tires, bowling pins, construction debris and plastic.

Development Details

Certifications

Biscayne Landing has been approved as a prototype project for the new LEED ND (Neighborhood Development) certification, meaning eco-friendly "green" development and building techniques will be utilized throughout the project. Boca Developers, the developer of the project.

Ammenities

The mixed-use commercial/hotel/residential community will feature 6,000 residences, which include ocean-view luxury towers, mid-rise villas by the park, modern lofts and lakeside townhomes, and more than 400,000 square feet of commercial space, including a major hotel and health club, plus a variety of offices and street-level retail/restaurants.

Schools

• elementary school: David Lawrence Elementary
• middle/high school: Janet Reno High School for grades 9-12.

The schools will be completed in 2008, and will have the capacity to hold 1,560 students.

Local Attractions

A portion of Biscayne Landing will include some of the wetlands of Biscayne Bay, which will be preserved in the form of a 72-acre environmental park containing nature hikes, jogging paths, information plaques that describe the resident wildlife and trees, benches, a canoe landing and a boat house. It will also have connecting trails to Oleta River State Park.

Biscayne Landing will be near a 230-acre nature preserve, a new kindergarten through eighth-grade county school, the planned new Janet Reno High School, the Biscayne Bay Campus of Florida International University, a Florida fish and wildlife station and the city’s athletic stadium.

Development

The first two residential towers will be completed by the spring of 2007. Biscayne Landing is developed by Boca Developers. Ehrenkrantz Eckstut & Kuhn (EE&K) Architects is the Master Planner and Master Architect for the project.

Finanzierung

Public/Private Partnership

Biscayne Landing is the result of a partnership between the City of North Miami and Boca Developers. The city has leased the former superfund landfill to Boca Developers for two hundred years. As part of the partnership agreement with the city, Boca Developers will match the construction of new residences at Biscayne Landing with an equal number of new or rehabilitated affordable housing units on brownfield sites within the city. In addition, Boca Developers has also committed up to $25 million toward the renovation and expansion of North Miami's library, the construction of an Olympic training facility, and construction of a the David Lawrence, Jr. K-8 School.

The Miami-Dade commission has agreed to contribute $31 million of the costs of the Munisport cleanup, using part of a $130 million bond issue earmarked to clean up other polluted sites in the county.

Sales Issues

Boca Developers chief executive Brian Street said the company is struggling to sell units, which he attributes to the slowdown in the overall condo market in South Florida. "These are the worst of times for condo development," said Street.

The developers say they always recognized the added challenge they face selling units on a delisted superfund site. Months before the towers were made available on the market, the developers hired Frank Schnidman, a senior fellow at Florida Atlantic University, to train the sales staff, complete with role-playing exercises, on how to answer environmental and health questions about the property.

Other Information

Biscayne Landing is a member of the Florida Green Building Coalition, a nonprofit corporation whose stated mission is to providing a statewide Green Building program with environmental and economic benefits.

External links

• Center For Disease Control Public Health Assesment of Site
• Biscayne Landing Rental Program
• Official Web Site
• Architect's Web Site
• EPA Report on re-use of Munisport Superfund site for Biscayne Landing (pdf)
• Article in Feb. 2007 issue of Land Development Today "Multiple Partnerships Turning Brownfield Into Gold"
• One of Biscayne Landing's Architects, citing development as "an ambitious brownfield reclamation effort"
• Contaminents of concern found in groundwater